Sharanagati

Collected words from talks of Swami Tirtha




(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 24.06.2017 morning, Sofia)

(continues from the previous Monday)

So much about the tree of yoga. Let’s go to our next topic – the human being is also compared to a tree. The sacred banyan tree is like a person with his chakra-system. The tree of life or the tree of the human is composed of different elements. The complete tree is the human body. The three roots are the gunas, you must have heard about the gunas tamas, rajas and sattva. There are two fruits on this tree of human life – one is bitter and the other is sweet. The sweet fruits are the four main goals of human life: merits, or some good morals – dharma; then productivity, wealth – artha; then kama – or the emotional aspect of our life; and finally moksha – the spiritual freedom. These are the fruits of the human tree.

And of course these parallel goes on a long time, but what is the point here? That on this tree of the human body there is one main branch. This main branch is the heart. And on the heart two birds are sitting. One is us, individual souls, and the other is the divine observer. So we, as individual birds, we try to pick the fruits, while this divine observer helps us to reach all the goals that we deserve – good or bad. And actually we can say that the goal of yoga in general is to turn our individual attention to this divine presence.

So, you can see the parallels between the human body and the tree. And we can also see the parallels between the yoga and the tree. Therefore in human life yoga can help to reach higher and higher platforms of consciousness.

And actually our human life is about a treasure hunt. What we can achieve in this life if we practice yoga? Our treasure hunt is not a material one, we are searching for spiritual treasures. But what we can achieve if we practice our spiritual path?

We can achieve a friendly disposition. It is possible to achieve such a stage when you are friendly with everyone. Maybe not everybody is friendly towards you, but at least you can be friendly towards everyone. And this friendly, positive disposition helps us to understand things as they are. This is a very profound way to understand another human being – to have a friendly, positive disposition. So one treasure, one gift of yoga is this.

The next one – we are not satisfied with only one treasure, we want some more – the next one is compassion. Compassion is an active principle – sharing the troubles of others and also providing a helping hand. Compassion is a really profound and elevated spiritual practice in general. And if we practice compassion – probably we can expect that some compassion will come to us also.

But the ultimate achievement in yoga is the next step – and this is the bliss, the inner ananda of the soul. I think we share this common ideal – we all want to find our happiness. So all these treasure, actually they are called powers, are the good benefits and the fruits of yoga: friendly disposition, compassion and also our inner contentment or bliss.

How to reach these? Don’t listen to my lecture anymore! Try to practice for yourself. Because yoga is not about words, it’s about active meditation. So, go on with your treasure hunt!

Question: You said on the tree of life there are two fruits. You explained about the sweet, but I think you missed the bitter one?

Swami Tirtha: I think we all have profound experience with the bitter fruit of life. But friendly disposition also means that we accept the difficulties of life. In general we can say that these bitter fruits are sufferings or any kind of limitations that we perceive. But these are only distortions of consciousness. Although difficulties are very painful, ultimately they don’t really exist, they are only but reflections on the screen of our mind. Therefore by the spiritual practice we can come to a platform of inner contentment. And maybe the input, or the external world will be the same – sometimes favorable, other times more painful – but our answer to all these challenges will change. Therefore we can say: if you reach a higher level of spiritual consciousness, then you will have no bitter fruits. Thank you!

(to be continued)

 



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